


The Breaking Light

by FidotheFinch



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Damian plays violin, Gen, Hate Plague, Music
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-11
Updated: 2019-04-11
Packaged: 2020-01-11 20:09:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18431219
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FidotheFinch/pseuds/FidotheFinch
Summary: Zitka, Grayson’s stuffed elephant, was on a shelf in the bedside table. Pennyworth had sent him to fetch it, but Damian was skeptical it would help.Another item caught his eye. He hastily changed his goal, hand wrapping instead around the music box.





	The Breaking Light

**Author's Note:**

> For Dick and Dami Week 2019, Day 4: music.  
> Rated T for swearing, again.
> 
> Title from Vienna Teng's "The Breaking Light," which I absolutely recommend a listen to. It's the musical version of a liminal space (and the lyrics are appropriate for this story).

Damian cracked the door open slowly. He had grown used to the room being unoccupied, but it had never felt so _empty_.

He remembered the room as one of the sunniest; it was situated at the corner and had three windows that flooded the room with light. But the curtains had not been pulled back for days now. Damian squint in the dark, making out the blurry shapes of furniture. His hand grappled against the wall for the light switch—he wasn’t usually the one to turn them on, so he wasn’t sure of its exact location.

The lights came on, revealing that the odd shape of the furniture was caused by the clothes tossed over their surfaces. Damian took a deep breath. The sight should have made the room more homey, but it only made its disuse more obvious.

Zitka, Grayson’s stuffed elephant, was on a shelf in the bedside table. Pennyworth had sent him to fetch it, but Damian was skeptical it would help.

The plush carpet dampened his footsteps as he made his way toward the bed. It was unmade, covers flipped back and one pillow on the floor. Damian scoffed. Typical of Grayson; he could easily picture the man rolling out of bed in his morning haze. Pennyworth clearly hadn’t been here since.

But then, the butler had other things on his mind.

The stuffed elephant was exactly where it was supposed to be. But it was another item that caught his eye. He hastily changed his goal, hand wrapping instead around the music box.

It was small, and simple for what his Father’s money could buy. The base was a small circle, on top of which an elephant and small dancer in a pink tutu travelled. Four tiny brass rods held up a striped red-and-white circus tent ceiling, from which hung two trapeze with a smiling man and woman on each. At the top of the circus tent was a brass flag, the metal discolored from years of use.

Damian carefully twisted the flag clockwise, just a few clicks, to listen to the melody. The elephant and dancer spun around with the platform and the trapezes swung back and forth gracefully, but Damian understood it was the music that caught young Grayson’s attention.

The musical dings were slightly off-pitch, but it was a tune he was familiar with. He heard it drifting through Grayson’s door, when a night had been bad. The man had also played it for him, several times, when he was sick or plagued with nightmares.

_He’d fly through the air with the greatest of ease_. . . the melody suggested.

Grayson had said his mother would sing it to him when he was little. That she had had the most beautiful voice, and that she would sing the songs she grew up with in Europe, like “Nani, Nani,” and the lullabies she had learned later, like “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.” But Grayson’s favorite had been this one, because it was the one they had learned together.

_That daring young man on the fly—_

The music box slowed to a halt before it finished the phrase. The ensuing silence was heavy. Damian moved to put the music box back where he had found it, but paused.

If Grayson ever needed this song, now was the time.

 

* * *

 

 

The Cave was cold. Damian grabbed an extra blanket on his way to the med bay. Grayson would catch a chill; Pennyworth had suggested moving him to his room if he didn’t wake before the day ended.

Damian pulled the rolling counter closer to the cot, careful not to tangle the wheels in the wires and tubes resting against the floor.

The pulse on the heart monitor sped up as he got closer. Damian ignored it, placing the music box just so on the table. Only then did he raise his eyes to the figure in the bed.

Grayson stared back, eyes narrowed in hate. “I was hoping you wouldn’t come back this time.”

Damian averted his eyes again. He used the blanket as an excuse, throwing it up and over Grayson’s restrained body. “Let me go,” his mentor growled. “And I’ll show mercy. I’ll kill you quickly.” He punctuated the last word with a thrash of his hands, tied to the cot with padded restraints.

Damian checked the IV. Dick hadn’t managed to pull it out again. Satisfied, Damian tucked the blanket in around the straps.

Dick hissed. “You little bastard! When I get out of here, I’m going to _eviscerate_ you!”

Damian shrugged. “You will not be freed until you’re better.”

Dick laughed, but it wasn’t Grayson’s laugh. It was darker. “That’s the secret, little bird. There’s nothing wrong with me. This is how I’ve always felt.”

Damian frowned. “You do not even know my name.”

Grayson scowled, his eyes heating up again. “You’re Robin.”

“My _real_ name.”

“Why would I bother—”

“You tried to kill me on patrol. You’re not yourself—”

“I just got fed up with you. I finally had the guts to do what I should have done from the start.”

Damian’s face remained stony. “Very well.” He sat in the chair by the cot.

Dick’s eyes glinted. “Is this an invitation to kill you? Because you forgot to untie me first.”

Damian shifted in his seat, sinking into the slightly-comfortable posture he had found from hours of recent practice. He didn’t reply.

“It’s been three days, Robin. This is permanent. This is who I am, who I was all along. No matter how long you wait in that chair, nothing is going to change.”

“Tt.” Damian focused on letting the words roll off his back. This couldn’t be permanent. (He dismissed the larger part of his mind, which insisted he must prepare for the worst-case scenario). “I brought something for you.”

“Unless it’s a weapon, I’m not interested.”

Damian frowned. Grayson hadn’t even looked at the music box; his eyes had skimmed over it without a trace of recognition.

Still, with a seed of hope, he twisted the little flag back several clicks and released it. The melody came out soft, echoing off the Cave walls with an eerie quality. Damian searched for a twitch of acknowledgement, even glanced at the vitals to look for a change.

Grayson glared past the contraption at Damian, unblinking.

After a long minute, Damian lowered his eyes. “You don’t recognize it.”

Dick laughed. “This children’s toy?”

Damian looked away, listening to the last few beats of music before it died again.

 

* * *

 

 

Damian was tired. The Manor was too quiet, except for the sound of his older brother, having figured out their bedrooms were next to one another, screaming at him through the walls between rounds of sedatives. He had lined the walls with sound-deadening materials, but he could still make out the words.

“It hurts! For _fuck’s_ sake, let me go! Robin!”

Grayson had switched tactics after realizing it got more of a reaction out of him.

Damian’s heart was heavy, but his fingers thrummed with the need to do _something_. Drown out the noise. His violin was sitting on its stand in the corner of his room, next to the music he had been learning. He hadn’t touched the instrument in days, since the whole debacle started.

Mother would be disappointed.

He lifted the familiar weight and rested it on his shoulder. When he finished tuning, he was at loss what to play. The piece he had been learning was complicated, and he didn’t feel like tackling anything difficult.

“Robin, please!”

Damian abruptly ran the bow across the strings, making an awful shrill sound. The new noise only made the voice pause, and then the volume increased. “You little shit, let me out of here!”

Damian took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and focused on the feel of his bow gliding across the instrument. He played an old piece, something far below his skill level. It sounded different to his more experienced ears, now.

He rocked in tempo with the melody, letting the sound wash over him and drown out the sound of his brother next door. It was a slow build in a minor key, and Damian had never felt its message so clearly or deeply. He drew each note out, adding a tasteful amount of vibrato at the end of each.

When he reached the end, he immediately transitioned into another piece, something he had taught himself by ear from recordings of the masters. When that was through, he turned to a fast piece that required incredible speed and stamina.

When he finished the last note, he dropped his burning arms slowly. Sweat was dripping down his back and forehead, and his breath was loud and heavy in the ensuing silence.

Silence.

Damian bolted out his door, not wasting time to set his instrument down. If Grayson had escaped, the first person he would attack would be Alfred, who was clearly the easier target. But when he threw Richard’s door open, the man was there, resting in his cot.

Damian held his breath. “Richard?”

The man turned his head. His eyes opened, and they were soft and round like Damian remembered. He smiled.

“Damian.”

 


End file.
